It was in the eighteenth century that the poorer sort of literary men seem to have lived here.
Swift and Pope both ridiculed Grub Street writers; and Swift’s advice to Grub Street verse-writers is worth quoting:
I know a trick to make you thrive:
Oh! ’tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall survive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried:
And Curll must have a special care
To leave the margin wide.